Release date is 2026-04-27

Jane Robins, Neil Mercer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

The Illustrated Horse Management by Edward Mayhew is a practical veterinary and horsemanship manual written in the mid-19th century. Grounded in anatomy and observation, it offers comprehensive guidance on feeding, shoeing, stabling, training, and the ethical treatment of horses, with frank commentary on grooms, dealers, and equipment. It advocates humane, commonsense handling over harsh tradition to improve both equine welfare and performance.

The opening of the manual presents a forceful preface arguing that kindness and fact—not convention—should govern horse care, challenging myths (such as Arabian perfection), showing how cruelty creates “vices,” and defending gentle training (e.g., Rarey) against the charge of being “unpractical.” A detailed contents list signals the breadth to come. Chapter I then uses anatomy to derive practical rules: large lungs and a small stomach imply frequent feeding; the head should be lowered to eat to protect the larynx and aid jugular flow; nostrils, false nostrils, guttural pouches, and a flexible larynx show how airways expand with work; and stables must provide pure air. Eye structures (corpora nigra, tapetum lucidum, nictitating membrane) point to a desert origin, night grazing, and sand protection, leading to cautions about climate, housing, and light. He explains the spine, ribs, and limb mechanics that give riders an elastic, living seat—and how early labor, bad shoeing, or tendon injury destroy that design. A vivid interlude condemns the routine abuse of donkeys in Britain, contrasting their tropical adaptation with their cold, overworked, underfed lives. At the start of Chapter II, the author urges owners to supervise care rather than pay and ignore, and he criticizes the stable’s blind reliance on aloetic “physic” and routine dosing. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Philadelphia: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 1864